Obama Urged to Declare Emergency for Mississippi River

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Shippers and lawmakers are
pressuring President Barack Obama to declare a federal emergency
along the Mississippi River, citing potential “catastrophic
consequences” in the Midwest if barge traffic is curtailed by
low water on the nation’s busiest waterway.

Lawmakers, including Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, and the
National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute urged Obama to
tell the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to hasten the planned
removal of submerged rocks near Cairo, Illinois, that may impede
barge traffic at low water levels. The Corps also should stop
its seasonal restriction on the flow of Missouri River water
into the Mississippi, which it began last week, the groups said.

“We still got a lot of stuff to move down that Mississippi
before winter totally sets in,” Harkin said in an interview.
“They can release more water, sure they can.”

Mississippi River barge traffic is slowing as the worst
drought in five decades combines with a seasonal dry period to
push water levels to a near-record low, prompting shippers
including Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. to seek alternatives.
Computer models suggest that without more rain, navigating the
Mississippi will start to be affected Dec. 11 and the river will
reach a record low Dec. 22, Corps spokesman Bob Anderson, based
in Vicksburg, Mississippi, said.

Export Cargo

Barges on the Mississippi handle about 60 percent of the
nation’s grain exports entering the Gulf of Mexico through New
Orleans, as well as 22 percent of its petroleum and 20 percent
of its coal. About $7 billion worth of commodities usually
travel on the Mississippi in December and January, including
$2.3 billion of agricultural products and $1.8 billion of
chemical goods, according to the American Waterways Operators
and Waterways Council Inc.

An emergency declaration would help by directing the Corps
to release more water into the Mississippi and remove rock
formations south of St. Louis without following federal
contracting practices that may delay action, Harkin said.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said yesterday the
administration has sought drought relief for farmers and
referred questions about the emergency declaration request to
the Corps of Engineers.

Multipurpose Use

“We’ve been operating with the drought in mind all year,”
said Michael Petersen, spokesman for the Corps in St. Louis, who
said there are no plans to change procedures. The river system
“is multipurpose. It’s people’s water supplies, hydropower.
We’re dealing with the hand we’ve been dealt, and we’ve prepared
as best we can.”

Mississippi water levels may drop to an historic low next
month, in part because of the Corps of Engineers. Last week it
started reducing outflows from the Missouri River, which joins
the Mississippi at St. Louis, as part of an annual operating
plan to ensure regions further north have adequate water. To
mitigate its reduction of Missouri River flow, which started
Nov. 23, the Corps started releasing water from Minnesota and
Iowa from the upper Mississippi on Nov. 20.

The U.S. Coast Guard, which sets restrictions on river
traffic, said it’s prepared to handle anticipated drops, by
limiting traffic without halting it. “We are confident that
while there may be hiccups along the river, river traffic will
continue to flow despite these historic conditions,” Colin
Fogarty, a spokesman, said in a telephone interview.

Congress Request

Fifteen U.S. senators, 62 members of the House of
Representatives and three governors have written the Corps
asking it to delay water-reducing actions and remove rocks that
impede traffic. The Mississippi “is vital to commerce for
agriculture and many other goods,” the lawmakers, including
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, that chamber’s second-ranking
Democrat, wrote in the request.

Durbin will be joined tomorrow by lawmakers and staff from
Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana and Missouri at a Washington meeting
with Assistant Secretary of the Army Jo-Ellen Darcy, who heads
the Corps, to urge action that will keep the Mississippi open
for barge traffic, according to a statement from his office.

“Substantial curtailment of navigation will effectively
sever the country’s inland waterway superhighway, imperil the
shipment of critical cargo for domestic consumption and for
export, threaten manufacturing industries and power generation
and risk thousands of related jobs in the Midwest,” the
business groups said in a letter yesterday.

‘Balanced Approach’

“We have to take a balanced approach to preserve shipping
in the short term and manage the flow into next year,”
Branstad, one of the three governors, said today in a telephone
interview. “It’s a delicate situation.”

Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat whose state
relies on the Missouri River for irrigation, questioned whether
that river’s flow needs to be increased to help more-southern
regions.

“We’ve heard this every year for as long as I’ve been
here,” Conrad said. “What one finds if you pierce the veil is
the freight movements on the river have never reached the levels
predicted.”

The Army Corps is following the instructions of Congress
that directed management of the Missouri River, Petersen said.
Petersen declined to speculate on what effect the emergency
declaration would have on the pace of destroying rock
impediments, while noting that the work would still take time to
find a contractor and complete.

Thebes Pinnacles

So-called rock pinnacles in the river near Thebes and Grand
Tower, Illinois, which aren’t a hazard when levels are high,
make the water near Cairo, Illinois, unnavigable as shallower
currents draw ships into contact with them.

The current plan is being followed “with long-term
considerations in mind,” he said in a telephone interview. “We
need to think about snow melt and considerations into next year.
We have to manage the water for the long term.”

Meanwhile, companies are taking steps to manage short-term
disruptions. Kirby Corp., a Houston-based operator of a fleet of
inland tank barges, is loading less cargo on barges operating on
the Illinois and Mississippi river between St. Louis and Cairo,
Illinois, Joe Pyne, Kirby’s chief executive officer, said today
during an investor conference call.

“Without extensive rainfall or other forms of remediation,
further draft restrictions are likely and it is still possible
that the area between Cairo and St. Louis could be rendered
unnavigable for a portion of the winter,” he said. “We
currently plan to continue to operate on affected sections of
the river system, but at lower draft levels.”

The worst U.S. drought since 1956, which dried farmland
from Ohio to Nebraska, will last at least through February in
most areas, according to the U.S. Climate Prediction Center in
College Park, Maryland.

Normal-to-below normal precipitation is forecast for most
of the U.S. Plains through Dec. 7, according to the center.